Catching the Middle Age Wave

I have talked in previous blog entries about a couple things I consider to be among man's greatest inventions. NyQuil and Advil are two of them. I discovered a new one while we were on our cruise last week: The Flowrider! Wooooo!

The Flowrider is a surfing simulator at the back of the ship, and it is geared toward two main demographics: kids in their early teens, and midlife crisis men. As I stood in line, I could see that many of us middle age dudes were standing in line with our kids, as if they really needed our guidance or something. Of course in reality we were probably more excited about riding it than they were, but we didn't want to look like the old dorks that we are, so we made sure to have kids along to justify our presence. I had to physically restrain myself from jumping up and down in anticipation.

The first time I went on the Flowrider, it happened to be during a surf board session, meaning we had to stand up on the board and try to surf. Thankfully, most everyone fails miserably at this, so I wasn't the only one who managed to stay on it for a total of 1.5 seconds, followed by being swept away by the current and directly into a wall.

Little Smoot wasn't tall enough to attempt the surf board, but she and I both had good luck with the boogie board. Instead of standing up, you ride on this board belly-down. By the end of the week I was doing some actual tricks on the board, some of them on purpose. One time I found myself standing on my knees and surfing backwards, and people were asking me how I managed to do that. I made up some story about how I was leaning into the current, or something. But the real, honest answer was: "not intentionally."

I must have ridden the Flowrider a dozen or so times throughout the week (I have numerous fancy bruises to prove that). I think it's worth mentioning that I never once saw a woman over the age of 16 attempt to ride it. I assume they were busy doing something more appropriate for people my age, like Bingo or napping.